All Color Matters

Call me a tree-hugging-organic-food-composting-Mom. I’m proud that my household bans artificial foodstuffs from our pantry (low these past 16 years). Riddled with guilt afterwards, I do occasionally cave to my daughter’s desire for mac and cheese in the blue box (if it’s the only choice my picky eater will agree to on a restaurant’s kid’s menu). Outside of this occasional transgression, I do my best to read packages and question ingredients that either have number designations next to color names or the word artificial in them. It comes at no surprise that a movement is slowly building to spotlight the amount of artificial colors found in many popular foods. Many consumer advocacy organizations such as The Center for Science in the Public Interest believe that synthetic food dyes (specifically Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 60) may be linked to behavioral problems (hyperactivity) in children. This group recently asked the U.S. government to ban the dyes—or at least require manufacturers ...

One of the best free online tools I’ve seen for creating on-the-fly RGB color. Color Scheme Designer boasts an attractive and user friendly interface that delivers RGB percentages and Hexadecimal codes in large color swatches.The best feature on this website is the ability to preview your color choice through the eyes of a color vision deficiency (color blind) individual. The website lists the eight acquired or inherited conditions and allows the user to easily navigate through each one. There’s also an area where you can preview two types of prototype webpages that integrate various combinations of color with rollovers and sample text for mono, complementary, triad, tetrad, analogic and accented analogic. This preview can be done with or without the color vision deficiency option. Finally text samples can be generated on the color swatches in white, gray or black to circumvent any issues with contrast. Designers will find this to be an invaluable when making those critical color...

Logos, slogans, and colors, become synonymous with a product, company, cause or sports team over time. Studies to support consumer driven responses to color are constantly being monitored by the marketplace to maximize data on current and future color trends. Because color can stand independently of words, it is capable of being recognized on its own —devoid of any reinforced logo or text. With this in mind, should an organization strive to protect their color assets through trademark? Not unlike a logo or company slogan, colors can also be protected under the umbrella of trademark. But can these measures extend to the name of a color as well? Syracuse University filed a federal trademark for the exclusive rights to the word “orange”. From the university’s perspective it was a logical move toward protecting their sports team name (which in 2004 had been edited down from “Orangemen” to simply “ Orange ”). Even though the official filing was done in 2006, several colleges have ...